This photo provided by the Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa shows A man stands in the ruins of what is described as his home in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Okla., in the aftermath of the June 1, 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, in a photo provided by the University of Tulsa. On May 31, carloads of Black residents, some of them armed, had rushed to the sheriff’s office in downtown Tulsa to confront whites who were believed to be planning to lynch a Black prisoner. Gunfire broke out. and over the next 18 hours, white mobs carried out a scorched-earth campaign against Greenwood. Some witnesses claimed they saw and heard airplanes overhead firebombing and shooting at businesses, homes and people in the Black district. More than 35 city blocks were leveled, an estimated 191 businesses were destroyed, and roughly 10,000 Black residents were displaced from the neighborhood. Most historians and experts who have studied the event estimate the death toll to be between 75 and 300. Victims were buried in unmarked graves that, to this day, are being sought for proper burial.
(Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa via AP)
